


Passing Through

by Ford_Ye_Fiji



Series: Cigarettes and Miniguns [5]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Forgive me for I have sinned, Gen, Most of the pain is physical not emotional, Nick is my aesthetic, Sadness, Someone gets hurt, Violence, and it's not graphic, but it is??? ??, duh - Freeform, emotions that is, eventual hurt/comfort, i didnt know what to rate this, its late and I'm rambling, its the good stuff, should really work that in there, sorry tag wranglers, this is old, too many tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-10-30 12:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10877115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ford_Ye_Fiji/pseuds/Ford_Ye_Fiji
Summary: "The entrance wound (of a bullet) is normally smaller and quite symmetrical in comparison to the exit wound, which can sometimes be ragged with skin, tissue, and muscle and bone damage."





	1. Entrance

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old work I've had hanging around in my notes, so I decided to finish it and polish it up a bit! Hope ya'll enjoy... the pAIN.

He just lays there, glass eyes staring up the drizzling sky. The glass that had once been a bright glow-in-the-dark yellow- a yellow that at first glance had been strange, foreboding, and unknown, but as time passed became familiar, comforting, and _alive_ \- was now a dull gray.

Nora whipped around, eyes wide at where he lay after the gunshot rang out.

It was a routine mission, just a couple of raiders. Nora had ended up grappling with the last one and the man's wild scattered shot had gone wide. She hadn't noticed that Nick had dropped until the strange thump and the rattle of something mechanical and not quite right.

The sound of the raider scrabbling in the mud for his gun brought her back to the present. She turned back to face her enemy, aimed, and shot the man in the kneecap. He fell screaming, his leg suddenly gone from the powerful shot by the Overseer's Guardian.

Another shot and his ragged screams were silenced.

Nora quickly slide to the synth's side, hands hovering worriedly before settling on either side of his scarred torn face, "Nick?" It was then that she noticed his dark optics, "Oh, no. No no no, Nick!"

She put a hand to his chest, trying to feel if the familiar soft thrum of a motor or machinery running was still constant, but his body was still and silent. Something cold, wet, and slimy slid between her fingers. She brought her hand to her face and Nora frowned as she rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger.

It was oil or something. Possibly coolant? The bright orange color confirmed it. Definitely coolant.

She quickly tried to find the leak and in her search, she found the bullet hole. It was a shotgun round, tiny dots and dents in his metal chest indicating where the spread had caught him. She swallowed and turned him over. The wound was larger on his backside, tearing a hole through his seemingly impenetrable silicon skin.

Nick was gone.

Nick _wasn't_ gone.

He _couldn't_ be gone. She had to fix him.

 _She_ couldn't fix him, she didn't have the supplies or the skill. She was no mechanic... But she did have duct tape and she could fix the leak temporarily until they got to someone who did.... But where to go?

Sturges.

Sturges could do it.

With a destination in mind, Nora grimly turned to the task of finding what exactly was leaking the viscous fluid. She prayed that she wasn't harming anything, and gingerly peeled torn flaps of artificial skin back from the hole. She winced and for the first time in her life was relieved that Nick wasn't a human. This situation would've been a whole lot gorier if he'd been flesh and blood.

The wires, tubes, and machinery parts were baffling. When she'd been in the Brotherhood of Steel, she'd never had the talent to become a Science Scribe, but she'd had enough crash courses from Sturges, Danse, and the like to figure out her power armor. The worst part about this whole thing was the thunder overhead, the gray overcast sky, and the darkening rain. She could barely see the detective's innards, meaning she'd have to do this whole operation by touch alone.

She stuck her hand into the hole feeling around for a leak.

One of her fingers grasped a wire, she felt along it, determined that there was no hole, and moved on. Thankfully, the next tube she found had a wet jagged tear which she quickly pinched it shut. A second later, after a struggle about whether or not she should pull out the wire for easy access despite the resistance or risking more damage by shoving both hands in (she went with the former), she had both arms elbow deep in the fluid, a small piece of duct tape in her trembling hands.

It wouldn't stick.

It was hard to to wipe the wire free while pinning it shut with one hand, but she managed, and the duct tape finally stuck. She pulled a dishrag she'd picked up on one of their frequent raids and wiped away more of the mess.

Now was the hard part... One would've thought that essentially digging around in her best friend's guts was the hard part, but that couldn't come close.

Nora bent and huffed as she straightened, the damaged synth in her arms. He was lighter than she'd expected, but still heavy. She missed her power armor, Sanctuary Hills was miles away. She bent again and picked something up from the mud covered ground.

She managed to sit the object on top of her friend, covering the bullet hole. She sighed at his expressionless face. It was strangely terrifying to see him with his face slack, hat gone, and eyes dark. He looked so like those synths that tore apart whole towns along with their residents. The synths she and the Brotherhood had mowed down by the hundreds. Nora swallowed, "Don't worry, we'll get to Sturges soon."

Nora glanced at the battered worn fedora she'd picked up and gave a watery laugh, hoping beyond hope that somehow he'd answer her with a witty quip or an amused chuckle, even one of his fond grumbles- just anything, "Gotta... Gotta love the reverse damsel in distress scenario, huh?"

There was no answer.

Nora took the first step, foot sinking down into the mud.

She had a long way to go.


	2. Exit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora returns to sanctuary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know anything about computers forgive me

_Mandatory shutdown on account of malfunction enacted._

_Reboot._

_Unable to comply. Mandatory shutdown on account of malfunction enacted._

_ Reboot. Malfunction repaired. _

_Negative. Readings are registering malfunction still present. Mandatory shutdown has been enacted. Automatic reboot will engage once the malfunction has been repaired._

* * *

 

It was about the witching hour when Nora stumbled into Sanctuary nearly dead on her feet, the synth dangling in her arms in a grotesque pantomime of a bridal carry, limbs limp like a puppet with its strings cut and its animated puppeteer missing.

The few remaining members of the Minutemen rushed forward in concern, Sturges being one of the last to arrive. She fell to her knees, hardly registering the worried shouts and questions- hands grabbing at Nick but falling back at her feeble weakened protests. Hollers for water and food echoed throughout the usually lively neighborhood, those who'd been sleeping rousing others for help. Nora refused stimpacks and water as she kept gasping breathlessly in exhausted protest, "Sturges. I need Sturges. I need him. I need him _now_."

They weren't listening, but she wouldn't let go of Valentine. Not until Sturges appeared. Finally they seemed to get what she was after and a few calls for the engineer echoed throughout the crowd several times, before the beefy man finally lumbered into view with a frazzled cry of, "Hey, hey! I'm here, now get something into ya!"

Nora shook her head, her pale skin giving off a hazy wall of heat. She wasn't sweating and that was very _not good_ , "No. No time. Nick... Nicks in trouble."

The mechanic's scolding frown softened as he put a reassuring hand on the Vault Dweller's shoulder, "I'll take care of him, don't you worry. Get some rest now."

Nora looked ready to cry as she sighed in relief, " _Thank you_."

The rest of the group whisked her away, Jun staying with Sturges. The worried man nodded at him and spoke in stuttering tones, "I'll help you carry him."

* * *

 

_Reboot._

_Password required. Three attempts remaining._

_ ********* _

_Processing..._

_Password denied. Two attempts remaining._

_ ******* _

_Processing..._

_Password denied. One attempt remaining before permanent shutdown._

_ ************** _

_Processing..._

_Processing..._

_Processing..._

_Password accepted. Rebooting._

* * *

 

After several days, Nora held her breath as she watched Nick come back to life. Sturges had done a commendable job fixing him up. However, he told her the more difficult part would be persuading his control matrix to come back online. The first thing the talented mechanic had done was hook his brain up to a computer.

An hour later, Struges plods out, runs a beefy arm through his ragged hair, and says slowly, "I got in. He's gonna be fine Nora."

Nora almost sobs in relief.

Nick is wobbly at first, needing to be reminded several times why he can't walk just yet. It means a few days of boredom while he returns to normal functions. They repair and modify all of the guns they own, and several they don't, in the few days he can't move. Nimble and slim mechanical fingers quickly remembering how to work. She can tell he's upset when he can't flick on his lighter on the first try, decades of practice washed away by a mere bullet. An hour later though, the strange unsettling crisis was resolved when his body seems to come back to itself and he lights himself a smoke in record time. All through the week, Nora feels as if she is close to crying from sheer relief whenever he fondly calls her 'doll' and fires witty comebacks in response to her terse remarks. Her first and best friend of the new and deadly Commonwealth was back. When Nick jokes offhandedly about needing protective armor like her, she says seriously, "The next power suit I find has your name on it."

As the weeks pass, she slowly relaxes as Nick takes every chance he can get to thump on the new reinforced portion of his chest with an enthusiastic clang. Nora doesn't know why he finds it such a novelty, he was a robot before after all, but she dismisses it as him being his usual self. Nora knows it was probably difficult to be a synth for those first few decades, but he's a changing man, skin ironically becoming hard as metal over time until it was just another fact of life that he was a synth.

Seeming ages later, they're both out chasing gunners with glee. Everything is truly back to normal when a desperate gunner Sargent rears back and delivers a punch exactly where the bullet had struck months before. The poor mercenary reels back wailing and clutching a mangled hand.

That story becomes an amusing tale told around campfires and dinner tables, making Nora laugh happily, nearly forgetting why that particular spot on Nick was reinforced in the first place.

It's at one of these retellings that Nora finally gets it. She turns to speak and catches Nick giving Curie an amused but some how genuine half smile as he absentmindedly scratches Dogmeat's head. The German Shepherd is panting heavily, eyes closed in utter canine ecstasy. The Detective's thin metal fingers glint in the firelight and the glow of the flickering flames bounces off of the walled fortress that had once been her neighborhood two hundred years ago. He cracks a joke and Curie laughs gently, making his lips curve upwards and _something_ tugs sharply.

Nick turns to look at Nora and he asks gently, concern in the spark of bright eyes at her deer-in-the-headlights expression, "Hey, doll, you alright? Are you ready to call it a night?"

She shakes her head mutely, response sticking in her throat. He quirks an eyebrow, or where his eyebrow would've been had he had one, "You sure?" She manages something, "I'm fine, Nick."

It when he turns back to Curie, hands going to light a cigarette which would illuminate the dark shadows under the brim of his fedora, deep gravelly voice already beginning to answer one of the other synth's hesitant questions, Nora dares to think it.

_She loves him._

**Author's Note:**

> I rewrote this a ton of times and proofread it even more but I'm still not happy with it, so here. just have it.


End file.
